Shelter Me, London
If you’re surgically attached to your mobile and are one of those people who refuse to switch them off at the theatre (grrrr!), then Shelter Me is definitely for you. Performed by Circumference, it’s a circus-inspired immersive experience exploring the complexities of human experience as affected by the modern age of technology, all played out in the old Guardian building on Farringdon Road. When booking your ticket you will be asked to give your mobile number and will receive fragments of stories through text messages beforehand. During the show itself, punters will be sent messages to guide them around spaces and encourage them to engage with each other. A new form of audience participation, then.
Theatre Delicatessen, EC1, to 5 Jul
MC
Current Location, Bristol
Bristol’s increasingly ambitious Tobacco Factory has a terrific upcoming season that features NIE’s Around The World In 80 Days and Andrew Hilton’s revival of Brian Friel’s rarely seen Living Quarters. But first off it goes offsite for FellSwoop’s adaptation of a play by Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada, written in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Three women stand on a cliff-top surveying the village where they have lived all their lives, and which will soon disappear. Developed specifically for Bristol’s Trinity Centre, this allegorical response to climate change should remind how we can all be affected.
Trinity Centre, Thu to 14 Jun
LG
The Hook, Northampton
Art can be a dangerous thing. The FBI certainly thought that Arthur Miller’s film script The Hook was too dangerous to be made, fearing that this story of tensions between dockworkers and the mobster-controlled dock authorities might lead to civil unrest. Now his screenplay has been adapted for the stage by Ron Hutchinson and gets its world premiere in Northampton before moving on to Liverpool. Jamie Sives plays Marty Ferrara, a man who decides to take a stand against corruption and the gangs of 1950s New York and finds it puts at risk all he holds dear.
Derngate Theatre, Fri to 27 Jun
LG
The Red Lion, London
Between 2007 and 2012 Patrick Marber – the author of award-winning plays including Dealer’s Choice and Closer – had a severe case of writer’s block. His latest work, The Red Lion, stems from his experience during that time – of raising money with friends to buy the ailing Lewes FC and turning it into a supporter-owned club, as well as the help he received in dealing with his problems. A three-hander – the cast comprises Calvin Demba, Daniel Mays and Peter Wight – it’s set in non-league, semi-pro football and finds a brilliant young player arriving at the club. Although the play is ostensibly about the dying romance of the beautiful game, Marber has said: “What I think it’s about is so private and intimate I don’t want to share it with anyone.”
National Theatre: Dorfman, SE1, Wed to 30 Sep
MC
Great Expectations, Dundee
Dundee’s admired revenge season, which has already included Graeae’s take on Lorca’s Blood Wedding and Stewart Laing’s deliciously bloody Titus Andronicus, reaches its conclusion with a revival of Jo Clifford’s 1988 adaptation of Dickens’s famous story about a boy whose secret benefactor transforms his life, but not necessarily for the better. Like her current revived version of Anna Karenina, a critical hit for both Manchester’s Royal Exchange and West Yorkshire Playhouse (to 13 Jun), Clifford’s version of Dickens’s chunky novel is a bare-bones affair. Also notable is that, at its premiere almost 30 years ago, the role of Pip was played by a young Alan Cumming. The season’s revenge theme is explored here through the characters of the jilted Miss Havisham and the pitiless Estella, who leads Pip on a merry dance.
Dundee Rep, Thu to 20 Jun
LG
A Damsel In Distress, Chichester
A Damsel In Distress was a 1937 film starring Fred Astaire, and although this production features the George and Ira Gershwin hits from the film – including Nice Work If You Can Get It and A Foggy Day (In London Town) – it is not an identical proposition. The book, based on a novel and subsequent play by comic novelist PG Wodehouse of Jeeves and Wooster fame, has been rewritten by Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson, while director and choreographer Rob Ashford has assembled a terrific cast to tell the story of a beautiful socialite, a word-weary composer and an extremely fearsome aunt. Summer Strallen and Richard Fleeshman top the bill, with support from Sally Ann Triplett, Desmond Barrit, Isla Blair and Nicholas Farrell, in a show that is unlikely to tax the brain but will surely raise the spirits.
Chichester Festival Theatre, Sat to 27 Jun
LG
